


i've been learning a language (fingers and thumbs)

by optimisticlesbian



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/F, Flash Fic, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loss, Lost Love, Murder, Nightmares, One Shot, Orange is the New Black References, Prison, Regret, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 16:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/optimisticlesbian/pseuds/optimisticlesbian
Summary: Daya never really forgives herself.





	i've been learning a language (fingers and thumbs)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in two hours and it absolutely shattered my heart.

It all starts when she catches Daddy with Annalisa. 

Rage pulses through her veins, scorching her insides and turning her blood into fire. 

Daya doesn't know what she's doing when she drags Daddy away by the back of her collar, screaming at her for cheating, calling Daddy every name but a child of God. 

Daya doesn't know what she's doing when she hands Daddy the spiked bottle of hooch. It's just to teach her a lesson, she thinks. That'll show her. 

Daya only realizes what she has done when Hopper shoves her into the nearest empty room and hisses out the terrible, terrible news that crashes into her like a tidal wave. 

Guilt poisons her, rotting what's left of her soul from the inside out until she's leaning over the toilet bowl, puking her guts out as tears run down her face and stain the khaki of her uniform. 

She doesn't feel it for very long, though. 

At least, she doesn't think so. 

Daddy appears in her dreams sometimes. She's always slightly off, hair a little too long, teeth a little too yellow, eyes a little too hollow to really be her. 

There are times when she forgives Daya. Wraps her arms around her, kisses her soft and slow and tender just like she used to. Whispers sweet nothings in Spanish and English against Daya's skin, telling her it's okay, that she's happier here. 

Most nights though, Daddy doesn't. 

One thing remains constant, however. 

Daya never forgives herself. 

× × × 

Delia brings Armaria to visit once. 

Exactly once, and then never again. 

Armaria presses her tiny, chubby hand against the glass separating the two. Daya does the same, a smile, something she never does, playing across her lips. 

Things are all fine and okay until Armaria calls Delia 'mama', and that's when Daya throws the phone at the glass and screams at the top of her lungs, her throat burning so bad that she can barely breathe. 

She gets a week in the SHU for that. 

× × × 

Daddy's mother comes to visit once, too. 

Daya sits in the chair, bringing the phone to her ear. Nausea singes her stomach lining, fear bubbling up in her chest. 

She wants to feel nothing. 

But she can't bring herself to. 

"Why?" 

Red tinged meets dark brown. 

Daya doesn't have an answer. 

Daddy's mother speaks again, her voice thick with agony. 

"Why'd you kill my baby girl?" 

Daya hangs up and walks away. 

She hates herself for it. 

× × × 

"Maybe I'll finally know what it's like to kill someone." 

Aleida's hands wrap around Daya's neck, crushing her windpipe, her once beautiful features contorting with effort as she strangles the life out of her baby girl. 

Daya prays it's the last thing she hears. 

× × × 

It isn't. 

Aleida gets transferred to Ad-Seg, then to Cunt-Block, then to the outside a decade later. 

Daya stays. 

She watches people come and go over the years. There are a few other lifers in D-Block, some her age, some younger, some decades older. 

Taystee is one of them. 

Daya used to hate her at camp. Camp, when the only things she cared about were John and art, when she wasn't a convicted murderer. 

But now, Taystee is her lifeline. 

Taystee is her lifeline until fifteen years later, when she dies of a shiv between the ribs and bleeds out slowly, slowly, slowly. 

× × ×

Daya dies after twenty years. 

As she snorts the last of the small mountain of white powder, she can feel her heart slowing then stopping, paralyzed within her chest. 

She collapses on the floor, black ebbing at the corners of her vision before taking it over completely. 

Relief washes over her. 

"Baby, I missed you so much," Daddy drawls, her hands interlacing with Daya's. 

Daya's heart swells.

She feels love for the first time in years. 

So Daddy and Daya walk off into the light, Daddy with her slightly too long hair, her slightly too yellow teeth, her slightly too hollow eyes that don't carry the warmth they used to.

Daya walks with her, aged twenty years, completely alone in the world and full to the brim of self hatred and regret. 

But she's walking hand in hand with the love of her life into the bright, burning light ahead of them. 

And for only a moment, she is happy.


End file.
